Not to be outdone, or at least not without a fight, Mr. Ho has also been investing in the new, modern Macao.
Under a new Macao-China free trade deal, duty-free access is to start Jan . 1 2006, for about 93percentt of goods exported from here to China, and China's market is to be opened for 18 service sectors here, including telecommunications.
Gambling is nothing new to Macao.
Among other baubles to please its new master, Macao is building an international airport.
For these new markets, Macao is preparing a bank of bilingual translators.
MACAO, Oct. 7 — A few miles from the casino lights that advertise the new wealth of Macao's gambling-fueled economy stands a grimy row of overcrowded apartments, the Rua Um do Bairro Vá Tai.
Hermès also is setting up a new store in Macao at the end of the year, and Zegna is debuting a new flagship store in Hong Kong.
With billions of dollars planned in new casino investments, Macao expects to double its number of annual visitors by 2010, to 30 million, roughly the same as Las Vegas.
If economics dictate the rise and fall of languages, the renaissance of Portuguese is dictated by Beijing's new determination that Macao will serve as a platform for China's growing commercial and strategic interests in the Latin world.
The new housing of Macao has to be read as a high-quality extension of the proposed Zhuhai CBD, even if there remains a formal customs and immigration border, the official spoken languages are different, and traffic moves in opposite directions on each side of this border (Figure 3).
Announcement of a new fantan house in Macao, just west of Hongkong.
